Late last year, Koolhaas was awarded the gold medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, which means that he has now carted home all the biggest honors in his field, including the Pritzker Prize—architecture's Nobel—in 2000. But like a rapper who wins a Grammy and immediately sees his street cred take a hit, Koolhaas knows that such official plaudits don't do much for his reputation, at least in avant-garde circles. And they arrive at a time when certain long-standing complaints about Koolhaas, particularly that his greatest talent is for self-promotion, have grown louder. All of which makes this an ideal time to assess Koolhaas' body of work: His position as architecture's coolest designer and its leading theorist—the closest thing the field has to a rock star—is looking shaky just as several new buildings, in Seattle and elsewhere, promise to give him a wider profile than ever.